Protesters celebrate as statue of controversial Halifax founder is draped in tarp
HALIFAX — Protesters who pledged to remove a statue of Halifax’s controversial founder Saturday say they came away victorious after the monument to Edward Cornwallis was covered in a tarp.
More than 100 people looked up at a municipal worker, hoisted by a crane in a city-owned truck, as he draped a black tarp over the bronze statue at the centre of Halifax’s Cornwallis Park.
A Facebook event called “Removing Cornwallis” invited protesters to “peacefully remove” the statue, but organizers didn’t initially say how they planned to make that happen.
Cornwallis, as governor of Nova Scotia, founded Halifax in 1749 and soon after issued a bounty on Mi’kmaq scalps in response to an attack on colonists. The Mi’kmaq have long called for removal of tributes to Cornwallis, some calling his actions a form of genocide.